The art of staging realistic violence

Fight Choreographer Ronald L. Piretti, center, directs James Bradley, left, playing Othello, and Kat Connor, right, playing Dedemona in a fight scene for this year's Shakespeare in the Park production of "Othello" produced by Magik Theatre. Friday, May 11, 2012. Photo/Bob Owen

Fight Choreographer Ronald L. Piretti, center, directs James Bradley, left, playing Othello, and Kat Connor, right, playing Dedemona in a fight scene for this year's Shakespeare in the Park production of

Fight Choreographer Ronald L. Piretti, center, directs James Bradley, left, playing Othello, and Kat Connor, right, playing Dedemona in a fight scene for this year's Shakespeare in the Park production of "Othello" produced by Magik Theatre. Friday, May 11, 2012. Photo/Bob Owen

Fight Choreographer Ronald L. Piretti, center, directs James Bradley, left, playing Othello, and Kat Connor, right, playing Dedemona in a fight scene for this year's Shakespeare in the Park production of

That was one of the big questions on a recent Friday afternoon in the Magik Theatre lobby, where a team was working on the fights for “Othello.”

Ron Piretti, a New York-based fight choreographer, needed to know precisely how Othello (James “Apollo” Bradley) was going to dispatch his former beloved Desdemona (Kat Connor) so that he could figure out how to make it happen. And — most important — how to make it happen in such a way that no one was actually smothered or otherwise injured.

Bradley and Connor will act out that deadly matchup this week for Shakespeare in the Park, the annual outdoor production staged by Magik in the San Antonio Botanical Garden.

“Othello” director Richard Rosen has wanted to bring in Piretti, a fellow Trinity University alum, for a long time to handle the stage combat for Shakespeare in the Park. This is the first time the stars have aligned to make it happen.

Some local fight choreographers, including Morgan Clyde, have created fights for shows around town. Some directors do their own fight choreography — Tony Ciaravino, for instance, designed all of the fights for Classic Theatre's “King Lear,” which closes today.

That wasn't an option for Rosen.

“I don't do stage combat,” he said. “I thought it would be good to bring someone in to do it right.”

Piretti spent just a few days working with the actors on the handful of blow-ups in the play.

He knows his stuff: He is certified by the Society of American Fight Directors, and his Broadway credits include “In the Heights,” “The Miracle Worker” and the recent revival of “West Side Story.” He's also done some television, including the soap operas “Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns,” and leads stage combat workshops across the country.

“I feel like a Special Forces guy — I fly in, help them with the fights and fly out,” Piretti said.

He's also an actor — in addition to creating fights for “West Side Story,” he played Officer Krupke — and got into stage combat early in his career as a founding member of Fights R Us, an ensemble that did theatrical fights in a variety of venues all over New York.

“It's always nice to have some other skills in the bag as an actor,” he said.

He enjoys the work, too.

“Everyone likes violence as long as nobody gets hurt,” he said. “And it's fun to play like you did when you were a little kid.”

If the fights are done right, they do not look like child's play. He worked with Bradley and Connor to make sure that their altercations will look nasty onstage without actually being nasty.

They started with a relatively simple exchange, in which Othello slaps his bride across the face, several times, refining as they went. He showed Bradley where his hand should stop — right beside Connor's ear — just as she turns to make it look like she's been struck. As she whipped her head around, she slapped her own hand, the sound bringing the whole moment home.

“Yes! That's it! That tells a story,” he said when everything clicked just right.

That's one of the most important elements of the fights Piretti creates, he said.

“Every move has to tell a story,” he said. “Every fight has a beginning, middle and end.”

And safety is paramount. That's one reason to have a specialist take care of stage combat scenes.

“The wrong way is unsafe and doesn't look good,” Piretti said. “And the audience can tell when somebody got hurt onstage for real.”

The smallest thing can make a difference. In one fight, Bradley positioned himself right behind Connor, holding her arm as if wrenching it behind her. Piretti had him shift to one side to make sure that, when he pulled her head back, it wouldn't pop Bradley in the nose.

If the audience believes an actor has actually been injured, it pulls them out of the play. That's why he cautioned Connor about what she was doing in one fall. Bradley shoved her — though, in truth, she was controlling her own collapse — and each time she went down, she grabbed her arm the instant she hit the ground.

“I think the audience is going to think, ‘Oh, she hurt herself,” Piretti said. “I don't want to worry about you. And I worry about you as an audience member.”

He had her clutch her arm later in the sequence, making it clear it was Desdemona, not Connor, who had been hurt.

Throughout the session, he encouraged the actors to slow down.

“The thing you're going to want to do is rush through it,” he said. “Don't.”

Speed simply doesn't work in stage fights.

“You can't go too fast, or the audience can't see what happens,” Piretti said. “Everyone wants to speed up, but “Control is very important.”

That's one of the things that Ciaravino emphasized in his choreography for “Lear.” His approach seems to have worked: On opening night, some of the violence left a few audience members flinching.

During the three-hour rehearsal, he had the actors perform the moves in slow motion.

When he had them add some vocalization to a vicious knife fight, he said, “Grunt in real motion; fight in slow motion. Grunts are what's selling the thing for the audience.”

He worked through the fights by acting out each part in them, refining the moves and frequently asking the actors how the moves felt and whether what he was asking them to do made sense in terms of character.

Clyde, who is also an actress and director, is the woman behind a number of recent slugfests, including a pivotal fight in “Superior Donuts” at the Cellar Theater at the San Pedro Playhouse. When she was brought in to collaborate with Justin Loughlin on the sequence, the set was still being built, making their task trickier.

“It's tough,” she said. “The smallest thing can make a difference. I've had things happen where something was shifted 2 inches and completely throws the whole thing off.”

She also choreographs the fights and plays one of the lead roles in the Overtime Theater's sci-fi/comedy serial “The Adventures of Captain Cortez and the Tri-Lambda Brigade.” She estimates that she created “a bazillion” fights for the season two finale last month.

“Everybody knows what their own body is capable of,” she said. “It's interesting to teach somebody who doesn't move the same way that you do.”

Piretti figures that he's created in the neighborhood of 300 fights, not counting the handful he's worked on for Magik's “Othello.” The biggie there is the final battle between Desdemona and Othello.

They worked on a few possibilities for the fight. A blanket on the lobby floor filled in for the bed that will be onstage. In one pass, Bradley hoisted her off the floor and dropped her onto the blanket. When the scene turned violent, Piretti asked Connor what she thought her character would do: “Do you feel any impulse to hit back?”

“I think she's trying to get away,” she said.

They worked through it again, with Connor fighting back more.

“You have to grab me, because I'm going to run,” she told Bradley as they began one run-through. If he wasn't quick enough, she said, “Desdemona's going to live.”

They worked through it over and over, with Piretti simplifying things as they refined their moves. They tried to figure out how to make the fight work with Othello smothering her with a sheet instead of a pillow, a bid to keep the props at a minimum, though, ultimately, Rosen decided that the pillow was the best choice.